Nintendo has a drowsy E3 performance

The Big N let down rabid fanboys with unrealistic expectations, while not surprising everyone else. Nintendo had a lot to live up to after their fantastic presentation last year, wiping the floor with Sony and Microsoft’s blundering embarrassments of pay-to-play multiplayer and the always online Kinect.

As usual this article will sum up the hottest announcements from Nintendo’s games, projects and any noteworthy advancements.

Star Fox Zero barrel rolled its way onto the E3 presentation floor and Youtube, giving disgruntled Nintendo fanboys a portion of fodder feed of things to complain about. Puppets of the beloved Star Fox cast asked Fox if he could still do a barrel roll since his Starfox64 and Starfox: Assault days. And not only can he barrel roll in this game, he can also run across terrain in his ship. While the graphics were the biggest thing people could talk about, most Star Fox games were traditionally fun. Hopefully, so will this one.

Any kid of the 80s and 90s worth their salt will have played at least one level of the Super Mario series, even if their experience ended falling into the first hole on the first level. Look at how far we’ve all come, then, in the year 2015 with Super Mario Maker. While hackers had been playing with levels and roms for years to make those insane Mario levels (watch it if you want to feel stressed for the rest of the day), Nintendo has finally cashed in and allowed you, Mario-loving readership, to make “the level of your dreams”. It is probably sending every Mario player straight to hell in a fit of tears, too.

A lot of suckers missed the original Xenoblade that came out for the Wii several years back, which is a fan favourite to this day. Nintendo announced working on this last year, but it was worth posting so more people could be enlightened about how far its come. Xenoblade Chronicles stars Shulk, that British dude almost no one knew of in Super Smash Bros Wii U & 3DS.

Do you like scary games? If you thought Amnesia was scary, you haven’t properly sullied your pants yet because Fatal Frame was totally one of the scarier horror game franchises out there, and it’s come back with a vengeance as Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. If you’ve played Five Nights at Freddie’s, though, this might be a little easier on that anxiety disorder you probably developed.

Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is what happens when Nintendo has ran out of ideas for the Mario franchise and decides to smash two of them together. The end result is a quirky, unique experience with many confused Mario characters, new puzzles and paper boards in a 3D world. And the Papercraft Mario? Sweetest paper mache craft ever.

Fans of the Legend of Zelda series will notice that the all-new Legend of Zelda game was mysteriously absent this year, while Nintendo did its best to distract us with its new spin off games, Hyrule Warriors: Legends and Triforce Heroes. Hyrule Warriors: Legends offers more of the same for those who couldn’t afford a Wii U the first time around, while introducing Wind Waker characters — though let’s be real here, Ganondorf is still the only playable character that matters. Triforce Heroes, meanwhile, is three player game requiring you to play with friends. We’re still not sure what “friends” are. But you can dress up as a samurai, or in pyjamas or a bomb suit, so it’s not so bad, right?

More news of Yoshi’s Woolly World popped up this year, with clever yarn-based puzzles, an evil Magikoopa stealing all the Yoshi babies and Amiibos — wait, are those woolly Yoshi amiibos?! So cute! Yoshi’s Woolly World is expected to be released on October 16th, 2015.

The most nefarious game announced at E3 in recent memory, Metroid Prime: Federation Force takes place in the Metroid universe without a Samus or the themes of isolation and loneliness. Despite video gamers statistically not having any “friends”, Nintendo is gung-ho about making games as social as possible and made Metroid exclusively multi-player.

Nintendo fanboy knickers were in such big knots that they took to the Youtube comments and complained about the graphics, the multiplayer aspect, the lack of Samus and… well, everything. Some threatened to throw out their Wii U consoles, while others swore to never review a Nintendo game again.

Some took it a step further by complaining so loudly, they forced Satoru Iwata to issue a non-apology which Reggie Fils-Aime later had to clarify that it wasn’t, in fact, an apology. Nintendo stuck by the new Metroid game by saying they only make good games, they don’t make games just for angsty fanboys and if you don’t like it, suck it. It was all in a very apologetic tone, though.

Nintendo had loads of problems this year with Amiibo shortages and it’s about high time we all stood up to Nintendo about it — when will Nintendo ever understand that we, as gamers, generally don’t have friends?! Or even like innovation? Some of us don’t even have children to play with and even less of us have sentient dogs. We just want to enjoy games like we did in the olden days — just us and our Nintendo console of choice, alone in our cold, dark rooms.

About Ruth R.J.

R.J. is a writer, photographer, au naturel comedienne, professional slacker and food hustler from Ottawa, Canada. A multi-talented woman with a great track record for saving the world in style, she regularly squanders it all playing horror survival games (while totally not crying).
Contact Ruth: ruth.r@youthindependent.com